TV News LIES

The world's leading Palestinian writer, Raja Shehadeh, has been on a mission to save his most personal work: his diaries.

The award-winning author of more than 20 books has been documenting decades of Palestinian life, starting in 1967 at the very beginning of Israel's occupation of the West Bank when he was a teenager.

His diaries capture a unique voice and front row view of history: his meetings with world leaders, his work as a human rights lawyer, and his role as legal advisor to the Palestinians during peace talks with Israel.

Shehadeh, now 75, feared his diaries and archives — kept in his garage in the West Bank city of Ramallah — were at risk of destruction from Israeli military operations. (The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment about Shehadeh's fears.)

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An Israeli reservist has said that army officers treat Gaza’s entire population of two million Palestinians as targets, describing widespread killings and a collapse of rules of engagement during the genocide.

The drone operator, who spoke to Haaretz on condition of anonymity in an article published on Thursday, described a range of alleged crimes against Palestinian civilians.

He said he joined the army in 2008 and has killed at least 54 Palestinians up until October 2023, including unarmed civilians.

During the genocide in Gaza, he served in a drone attack cell until leaving the army in July.

“In the first days, there were no rules,” he said, describing an army with no clear rules of engagement when it came to Palestinians.

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A documentary examining the Israeli military systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza received a record-breaking standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.

NAZA, directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, drew a record-breaking 24-and-a-half-minute standing ovation at its world premiere, the longest at Venice, according to Variety.

The reception surpassed the 22-minute ovation given last year to Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, which tells the story of the six-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in January 2024.

Members of the Venice audience held Palestinian flags during the applause, while Abraham and Szor, who were visibly emotional, were embraced by the film’s executive producer, The Zone of Interest director, Jonathan Glazer.

Online, the documentary received heavy praise from festival-goers and many activists.

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An eight-year-old Palestinian girl, whose age was confirmed by al-Shifa hospital, was killed alongside her father in an Israeli strike on Gaza City on Sunday, hours after she attended the first day of the new school year.

Wafaa Yousef Nabil Akila and her father, Youssef Nabil Rabah Akila, were travelling in a vehicle in western Gaza City when an Israeli drone near the Hamid intersection struck the car.

The attack also wounded six other Palestinians, according to medical officials at al-Shifa hospital.

Photographs shared before the strike showed Wafaa smiling in a blue school uniform and giving a thumbs-up on her first day back at school.

Images from the aftermath showed her schoolbooks and supplies scattered across the charred wreckage of the vehicle.

“This is all that’s left, world,” one man said in the footage. “What truce are you talking about?”

“There has been no ceasefire,” another said. “Every day there are massacres. Every day there is killing. Every day children are dying.”

“Enough of this abandonment.”

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Palestinians on Sunday held a mass funeral for 100 people, including 62 children, whose remains were recovered from the rubble of buildings destroyed in Israeli strikes in Gaza City.

The bodies, recovered from the al-Zeitoun neighbourhood, included 55 members of the Malaka family who were killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023, according to Gaza’s civil defence.

The remaining victims belonged to the Irahem, Qanbour, Balawi and Dahdouh families.

Al Jazeera reported that no complete bodies had been recovered from the site, saying Israeli forces had hindered the recovery process.

Hundreds of people, including relatives and local residents, gathered outside Imam al-Shafi Mosque in al-Zeitoun for the funeral procession, bidding farewell to their loved ones, who were shrouded in Palestinian flags.

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The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) has announced a new international effort to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, with ships sailing between European ports before a planned attempt to reach the besieged Palestinian territory in October. 

The FFC said its latest mission would go ahead despite the violence and torture meted out to flotilla volunteers on previous attempts, including severe beatings, repeated tasering and sexual assault.

The coalition also accused Israel of blocking the entry of food, medicine and fuel into Gaza, saying the humanitarian situation required renewed international action.

“The Freedom Flotilla sails again because our governments continue to fail to uphold their obligations,” said Zohar Chamberlain Regev, a FFC steering committee member.

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